Progress in Afghanistan

Staff: Mentor

This situation in Afghanistan deserves it's own thread, since although it is one of two states in which which the US military is involved in direct conflict with entities designated as terrorists in the 'War on Terror', it is quite different from Iraq.

In an article, Joel Fitzgibbon, Australia's new Minister for Defense, outlines the challenge and the need for a strategic plan to secure democracy and stability in Afghanistan.

Are we winning the war in Afghanistan? It’s a hard question to answer. The better question may be: which war? The military mission? The war for the hearts and minds of the Afghan people? Or the struggle to secure agreement among the International Security Afghanistan Force (ISAF) partners, on a coherent strategic plan which could deliver secure democracy and stability in the war-weary South Asian country?

Before attempting to answer these questions, it’s important to first acknowledge that significant progress has been made in Afghanistan. Economic growth is currently running at an impressive 8 per cent. Healthcare in Afghanistan also continues to improve and spread: more than 80 per cent of the population now has access to basic healthcare services, and infant mortality rates continue to steadily decline. The number of Afghan children receiving an education now exceeds six million, the highest number of enrolled school children in Afghan history.

For Australia’s part, our Defence Force engineers, tradespeople and project managers are rebuilding local infrastructure. They have helped construct roads and bridges, redeveloped the Tarin Kowt Provincial Hospital and the local Boys’ High School, and assisted in the construction of a causeway across the Garmab Mandah River. The causeway has both facilitated commercial trade and improved access to health services. Our Reconstruction Task Force also built and continues to run a Trade Training School which provides the local population with the essential trade and construction skills they need to rebuild their own province.

All these facts suggest real, if only steady, progress. Importantly, they also provide ISAF partners with evidence to reassure their own citizens that the international effort to secure and rebuild Afghanistan is a worthy cause and that success is much more than a pipe-dream.

But while progress has been made, we cannot ignore the reality that more than six years after the Taliban was ousted from power, success in Afghanistan is not a given.

I recently travelled to the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, for a number of bilateral meetings and two important larger gatherings. The first was a meeting of Defence Ministers from Afghanistan’s Regional Command South (RC(S)): defence ministers from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, The Netherlands, Estonia, Romania and Denmark. That discussion followed a meeting of the same group in Edinburgh last December at which RC(S) members agreed to work on new strategies for the south and for Afghanistan more broadly. The intention is for the RC(S) plans to become our contribution to the development of NATO’s own strategic document for the future of Afghanistan.

Staff: Mentor

The US and Europeans are 'outsiders' in Afghanistan and the region, and they've had a rather poor history of meddling there. The US and NATO are caught between a rock and a hard place.

One of the biggest challenges in Afghanistan is the border regions with Iran and particularly the 'tribal areas' of Pakistan. The US and NATO cannot effectively cross the border, whereas the Taliban have no contraint.

The external challenges to the situation in Afghanistan include the US/NATO relationship and the conflicting interests of other parties in the region.

Article 6 of the Nato treaty limits the operations of Nato to the Atlantic North of the tropic of Cancer.
Ironically this was introduced to stop Nato being used by the British and French to pursue colonial wars in Asia for their own political purposes.

Staff: Mentor

The US originally funded and trained Bin Laden and his men to overthrow the Russian occupation, and it backfired on us. So this is another sticky issue with the Russians.

I remember a documentary years ago, where a famous US news reporter filmed Bin Laden's training camp. This was LONG before 9/11. At the time it was about the noble cause of freeing Afghanistan from the Soviets.

The wiki article has much better citations against the connection than for it, in my opinion.

Both the US and Zawahiri deny working with each other, but it would be embarrassing for both parties to admit doing so - if the US would be a hypocrite for supporting future anti-US terrorists, then would not bin Laden also be a hypocrite for fighting alongside his future enemy?

Staff: Mentor

The wiki article has much better citations against the connection than for it, in my opinion.

Both the US and Zawahiri deny working with each other, but it would be embarrassing for both parties to admit doing so - if the US would be a hypocrite for supporting future anti-US terrorists, then would not bin Laden also be a hypocrite for fighting alongside his future enemy?

National Security Decision Directive 166 from 1987, which is probably what actually authorized the CIA to train the Mujahideen to build car bombs and give them various other forms of aid, is of course still fully classified unfortunately.

But at least it's one of the Presidential Directives we actually know the name of... Here's the list of Reagan NSDD's. NSDD 250 is another classified one from later in '87 that also has something to do with Afghanistan.

Something of interest in the same vein I came across recently is the specifics of how the U.S. exported anthrax to Iraq (along with the various other kinds of support we gave Saddam Hussein during the 80's.)

Staff: Mentor

It certainly appears that some who subscribe to the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam have facilitated extremism, and Saudi petrodollars have enabled that. However, one can look earlier to the writings of Sayyid Qutb.

The current problems with Islamic militancy may be correlated with the European colonialism of the past 2-3 centuries, which could be seen as a continuation of the past millenium beginning with the First Crusade in 1095. Of course, this was not unique in history, which has involved a plethora of migrations and wars over wealth and territory.

It is not correct to imply that US support for the Mujahideen meant support for bin Laden's groups. They were described as a "side show" to the Afghan resistance, which I tend to believe if the numbers quoted above are accurate (they are cited). In fact, many sources say Pakistan was the party who distributed the funds and weapons provided by the US, and that Pakistan did not want the US to have a say in the distribution.

Now, there is no way for one to outright deny that the CIA supported (or even trained) bin Laden and his brethren. There could be any number of secret CIA projects that have yet to see the light of day.

I can say that the information that is available does not tend to support the connection.

The best I have found is that the US's support for the local Afghanistan resistance helped to create an environment in which groups like al-Qaeda could thrive, and that the international networks bin Laden helped to establish led to the emergence of al-Qaeda years, or even decades, earlier than would have otherwise been the case. This may be the "blowback" you were referring to, but it doesn't prove the CIA funded and armed bin Laden.

Staff: Mentor

True. bin Laden's group was a side show, but he was affiliated with Taliban groups.

It is not correct to imply that US support for the Mujahideen meant support for bin Laden's groups.

and that was not implied, at least not in my posts.

The best I have found is that the US's support for the local Afghanistan resistance helped to create an environment in which groups like al-Qaeda could thrive, and that the international networks bin Laden helped to establish led to the emergence of al-Qaeda years, or even decades, earlier than would have otherwise been the case. This may be the "blowback" you were referring to, but it doesn't prove the CIA funded and armed bin Laden.

Again, there was no such claim that the CIA funded bin Laden, at least not directly.

Throughout the years of Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, relations between the United States and Pakistan were best characterized by close cooperation. Still, United States policy makers became increasingly concerned that Zia and his associates- -most notably, General Akhtar Abdur Rahman, then head of the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence --appeared to give preferential treatment to the Islamic fundamentalists, especially mujahidin leader Gulbaddin Hikmatyar.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan made Pakistan a country of paramount geostrategic importance. In a matter of days, the United States declared Pakistan a "frontline state" against Soviet aggression and offered to reopen aid and military assistance deliveries. Pakistan's top national security agency, the Army's Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, monitored the activities of and provided advice and support to the mujahidin, and commandos from the Army's Special Services Group helped guide the operations inside Afghanistan. The ISI trained about 83,000 Afghan Mujahideen between 1983 to 1997 and dispatched them to Afghanistan. Pakistan paid a price for its activities, as Afghan and Soviet forces conducted raids against mujahidin bases inside Pakistan.

(12) In 1980, Representative Charlie Wilson began urging
the Central Intelligence Agency to arm Afghani mujahideen
fighters. The decision to double funding to Afghanistan was
unsolicited and was made without the knowledge of the
President. The book ``Charlie Wilson's War'', written by
George Crile, asserts that Representative Wilson thus
violated the Logan Act.

As the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq fades from the front pages, analysts are turning their attention to what is often called the forgotten war. Many fear that progress in Afghanistan is stalled and that the country is in need of major new measures to reinvigorate the war effort against the Taliban and other extremist factions.

To that end, talk is increasingly turning to a troop surge for Afghanistan. The conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank, which was instrumental in designing the current surge strategy in Iraq, in January convened an "Afghanistan Planning Group" that will shortly announce recommendations for an influx of troops into Afghanistan as well. "It's clear to everyone who looks at it that more troops are necessary in Afghanistan," says Frederick Kagan, an AEI fellow and an architect of the surge strategy in Iraq.

It is clear to U.S. military officials that efforts in Afghanistan are faltering and that more troops could help turn the tide. Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and now the deputy chairman of NATO's military committee, says that there is currently a shortage of maneuver and infantry forces in the country.

The US originally funded and trained Bin Laden and his men to overthrow the Russian occupation, and it backfired on us. So this is another sticky issue with the Russians.

I remember a documentary years ago, where a famous US news reporter filmed Bin Laden's training camp. This was LONG before 9/11. At the time it was about the noble cause of freeing Afghanistan from the Soviets.